{"id":973560,"date":"2019-11-16T10:08:55","date_gmt":"2019-11-16T17:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=913415"},"modified":"2019-11-16T10:08:55","modified_gmt":"2019-11-16T17:08:55","slug":"the-true-story-of-true-damage-the-virtual-hip-hop-group-thats-taking-over-the-internet-irl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/music-news\/the-true-story-of-true-damage-the-virtual-hip-hop-group-thats-taking-over-the-internet-irl\/","title":{"rendered":"The True Story of True Damage: The Virtual Hip-Hop Group That\u2019s Taking Over the Internet IRL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Millions of people around the world tuned in to see FunPlus Phoenix defeat G2 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/esports\/\" id=\"auto-tag_esports\" data-tag=\"esports\">Esports<\/a> in 3-0 at the 2019 League of Legends World Championships last weekend, but the real stars of this year\u2019s premiere Esports tourney may have been a surprise musical group who performed during the event\u2019s larger than life opening ceremony.<\/p>\n<p>Calling themselves \u201cTrue Damage,\u201d the virtual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/hip-hop\/\" id=\"auto-tag_hip-hop\" data-tag=\"hip-hop\">hip-hop<\/a> collective (who are all characters in the game) thrilled the sold-out crowd at Paris\u2019 AccorHotels Arena with a visually and sonically dazzling debut of their single, \u201cGIANTS,\u201d an original track <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2QoDzGw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">created especially for the event<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WFkZjTCxVPc?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The group was based on characters in League of Legends and fronted by real-life artists <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/becky-g\/\" id=\"auto-tag_becky-g\" data-tag=\"becky-g\">Becky G<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/keke-palmer\/\" id=\"auto-tag_keke-palmer\" data-tag=\"keke-palmer\">Keke Palmer<\/a>, the Los Angeles-based rapper Duckwrth, Nigerian-American rapper Thutmose, and Soyeon, a rapper and singer from the K-pop group, (G)I-DLE, who also participated in last year\u2019s championships as part of the one-off K-pop group, K\/DA. The five artists performed on stage in an intricately choreographed production alongside holograms of their League of Legends alter egos. The in-game characters, who range from a street-smart assassin name Qiyana (voiced by Becky G) to the time-traveling Ekko (voiced by both Duckwrth and Thutmose) are all fictional LoL champions with original backstories dreamed up by the team at video game developer Riot Games.<\/p>\n<p> <!-- .l-article-content__pull--left --> <\/p>\n<p>True Damage debuted an original song \u201cGIANTS,\u201d composed by Toa Dunn, head of Riot Music Group, and composer Kole Hicks. The music video for \u201cGIANTS\u201d was released to coincide with the opening ceremony and has already amassed more than 16 million views online. The club-ready hip-hop track was also <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2QoDzGw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">released to streaming outlets<\/a> and is climbing up the digital charts (As of this writing the song has more than 6.4 million streams on Spotify and was included on this week\u2019s New Music Friday Playlist).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-913609\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Worlds2019_Finals_Paris_89_089_MK208072.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"true damage league of legends soyeon\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\"><\/p>\n<p>True Damage\u2019s debut follows the global success of last year\u2019s K-pop inspired group, K\/DA, which featured singers Madison Beer and Jaira Burns, along with I-dle members Miyeon and Soyeon. K\/DA debuted their track, \u201cPop\/Stars,\u201d with an AR performance at last year\u2019s League of Legends World Championships, and the song reached number 1 on Billboard\u2019s World Digital Song Sales chart the following week.<\/p>\n<p>As for True Damage, Dunn says he\u2019s been excited to see the response to the group both from gaming fans and from music fans, which proves the two worlds are more connected than people might think. \u201cI think the future looks bright for this young collective and I wouldn\u2019t be surprised to hear more from them in the future,\u201d he says. \u201cAs for next year? Anything is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_913470\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2QoDzGw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-913470\" class=\" wp-image-913470\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/true-damage-giants.jpg?w=500\" alt=\"true damage giants song artwork\" width=\"388\" height=\"388\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-913470\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Courtesy Amazon<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>We spoke to the artists behind True Damage to find out how this virtual group pull it all off in real life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How did you get involved with this project?<\/strong><br \/><strong>Duckwrth:<\/strong> I am very much a big kid, so anything that has to do with animation, games and toys, I\u2019m keen. When Riot Games reached out and said they wanted me to do a verse for their character Ekko, I picked my jaw up off the ground and casually responded with a \u201cSure, I\u2019m down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Becky G:<\/strong> I was familiar with [the concept] because I had seen other artists participate in previous years, but I\u2019m not a gamer, so I had no idea what I was stepping into. I have two younger brothers though \u2014 one is 18 and the other is 20 \u2014 and they\u2019re pretty big on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/video-games\/\" id=\"auto-tag_video-games\" data-tag=\"video-games\">video games<\/a>. I asked them if they knew what League of Legends was and they freaked out. It was almost like everything else I had done up to now was kind of cool but this was by far the coolest. So I knew I had to get involved.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Keke Palmer:<\/strong> I learned about it through my team. I\u2019d heard of the game before, through friends and my little brother, but I never played. It was after I attended the [Riot] headquarters that I truly understood the vision. Gaming has been elevated so greatly over the years, and I wanted to be a part of the excitement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What was it about the partnership that made you want to get involved?<\/strong><br \/><strong>Soyeon:<\/strong> After working on the K\/DA Project last year, I\u2019ve enjoyed playing LoL, so I was very honored to receive another offer from them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thutmose:<\/strong> I love the global culture League of Legends has built and I consider myself a global artist, so being a part of something this historic and revolutionary is irresistible. And the opportunity to voice Ekko was so cool \u2014 I would have never imagined being able to voice a video game character. Of course working with amazing artists like Becky G, Soyeon, Duckwrth, and Keke Palmer was so exciting for me as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Becky G:<\/strong> One of my brothers is autistic, and he found a safe space in this community of gaming and felt like he really belonged somewhere, so I knew I had to get involved.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-913469\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/49043792861_5d35a949cc_c.jpg?w=799\" alt=\"true damage league of legends\" width=\"799\" height=\"533\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s the main difference between writing or performing your own stuff versus being part of this project?<\/strong><br \/><strong>Thutmose:<\/strong> Honestly not too different. I was very precise on how I executed my lyrics and visuals to create a world for the listener [Thutmose was also part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/33TcU8D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><em>Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse soundtrack]<\/em><\/a>. Of course, League of Legends takes it to a whole new level.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Duckwrth:<\/strong> Everything League of Legends does is <em>big<\/em>: huge production, huge team, lots of organization and doing the same thing over and over until it\u2019s perfect. My team is humble right now. I typically travel with three band members and two or three crew members. So this League production definitely hits different. Funny enough, I just came off of a few arena dates with Billie Eilish, so 20,000-seated venues are no longer a foreign dream to me. But still, performing with a hologram version of yourself and your character definitely puts League of Legends on a level of their own.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Becky G:<\/strong> Where it doesn\u2019t feel too foreign is that I am embodying a character, and for me, being an actress as well as a singer, I\u2019m familiar with that. The main difference is that I\u2019m singing a song as someone else, but in a weird way it still felt very on-brand for me because Kiana is also a rapper and singer and she\u2019s Latina like me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Palmer:<\/strong> I had to kinda get into the world of this character [Senna, a woman who was cursed as a child and spent years in a lamp] as opposed to the song being fitted specifically around me, so that was a different experience. But it turned out well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The response from both gaming fans and music fans has been huge. What do you think it is about this collection of artists that has been so powerful?<\/strong><br \/><strong>Palmer:<\/strong> I think True Damage is special because of the diversity and the different genres of music that we all do. We came together to perform this original song, having never met and that to me is pretty dope.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Becky G:<\/strong> In the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/latin\/\" id=\"auto-tag_latin\" data-tag=\"latin\">Latin<\/a> community, we\u2019re so big on collaborations and it\u2019s so cool to experience that in this realm. There\u2019s Korean rap, a little bit of Spanish, English. I also love that my character Kianna just a badass girl who\u2019s really empowered and creating her own story. She comes from a lot of <em>exitas<\/em> as you would say in Spanish and she has that pressure to succeed, but she\u2019s showing that you\u2019re so much more than where you come from; taking that agency and saying, \u201cNo, this is who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thutmose:<\/strong> I love how passionate the entire team is. I bring passion to everything I do, so to work with similar minds is just the greatest feeling.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Palmer:<\/strong> This is the Super Bowl of gaming; this is the future. I\u2019m just glad to be a part of it all.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/true-damage-league-of-legends-913415\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Millions of people around the world tuned in to see FunPlus Phoenix defeat G2 Esports in 3-0 at the 2019 League of Legends World Championships last weekend, but the real stars of this year\u2019s premiere Esports tourney may have been a surprise musical group who performed during the event\u2019s larger than life opening ceremony. Calling [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-973560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 18:31:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KFMU Solar Powered Radio","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}